One mean lasagna

Lawrencian earns prizes for creations

Sam Hunsaker is a cooking machine.

Bring him a batch of cucumbers, and he’ll give you back a jar of his bread-and-butter pickles. Take him some wild blackberries, and Hunsaker will convert it into blackberry preserves. Friends and co-workers who offer him garden-fresh tomatoes get, in return, jars of homemade, canned tomato sauce or some of Sam’s “Gotcha” Salsa.

But then you’re talking about a guy who’s made for his family everything from sushi to barbecued alligator.

“I’ll cook anything,” says Hunsaker, 43, a data control technician in Kansas University’s computing services.

“If I see something in the store, something we haven’t had yet, we’ll go ahead and get it.”

Yes, but alligator?

“I used a Cajun barbecue sauce on it and did it on skewers. It tastes like chicken. No, actually it’s more of a cross between a chicken and a shark.”

Exotic game aside, it was an original recipe of Hunsaker’s for a more mundane — yet amply satisfying — dish that caught the attention of a national cooking magazine. Hunsaker appears in the August/September issue of Taste of Home, in the magazine’s regular feature, “Men Who Run the Range.”

Taste of Home, based in Greendale, Wis., has a North American circulation of 4.5 million. A recipe for vegetable lasagna that Hunsaker sent in to the “Men Who Run the Range” feature — which highlights the talents of men in the kitchen — earned him a spot in the magazine.

Sam Hunsaker displays his Vegetable Lasagna, which was featured in the August/September issue of Taste of Home, a cooking magazine with 4.5 million subscribers. The magazine's managing editor said the lasagna recipe was picked because it showcased produce that is available this time of year.

Hunsaker’s mother, Wyvonne Hunsaker, who lives in Southern California, subscribes to Taste of Home and gave him a gift subscription a couple of years ago. His mother urged him to try sending in some of his recipes for dishes he liked to make.

“She said they have this thing in it, ‘Men Who Run the Range.’ She said you have to turn in three recipes, and she wanted to see me in that magazine,” Hunsaker says.

Was she surprised to see her son in Taste of Home?

“You know mothers — she wasn’t surprised. She said, ‘I knew you could do it.'”

Prize-winning fair entries

Taste of Home receives tens of thousands of submitted recipes each year, as well as hundreds of entries for the “Men Who Run the Range” feature.

Why did they pick Hunsaker’s?

“Our food editors take a look at the recipes that are sent in for this particular feature. The recipes are evaluated by our food staff, and the ones that sound most promising are selected for testing. We picked Sam’s recipe because it’s just the right time for gardening and fresh flavors,” says Ann Kaiser, Taste of Home’s managing editor.

Sam Hunsaker, a Kansas University data control technician, has won numerous awards in both county and state fairs for his various canned specialties.

“It was hardy, and it really showcased the vegetables: summer squash, tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots — it feels like a garden. This produce is available at this time of year.”

Hunsaker developed the lasagna recipe when he worked in the Italian Express department at Hy-Vee Food Store, 4000 W. Sixth St., where he works part time.

In response to a customer request for vegetarian dishes, he cobbled together a recipe using organic tomato paste and fresh vegetables from the store’s produce department.

It was a hit. He eventually entered his dish in the Douglas County Free Fair’s Naturally Nutritious Contest, sponsored by the Community Mercantile Co-op, 901 Iowa.

Though it didn’t win, Hunsaker has earned more than his share of ribbons at past fairs for his canned applesauce, blackberry preserves and bread-and-butter pickles.

About that applesauce: It’s terrific.

“Once a year, our whole family will go out to Davenport Farms near Eudora and pick Jonathan apples. Then we come back, peel them and make homemade applesauce,” he says.

Lawrence resident Sam Hunsaker is featured in this August/September issue of Taste of Home magazine.

Likes feeding people

Hunsaker has cooked all his life — even when he was a child — so it’s probably natural that he would wind up in a cooking magazine.

“My grandmother, she had peaches, figs, nectarines, plums, avocados, black walnuts and rhubarb. I spent summers with her, and I learned how to make jellies, jam and preserves,” he says.

After school, he’d sit down and watch “The Galloping Gourmet” on TV.

“When I went out to dinner with my folks, I would look for the word “flambe” on the menu. I loved to watch people cook at the table, because then I’d get the recipe. And I would go home, and my father would let me do some flambe (cooking).”

Hunsaker honed his skills in the kitchen when he was 21, working as a sous chef at a fancy restaurant in Corpus Christi, Texas.

“I would go out and I would do the cooking tableside, making Bananas Foster, Steak Diane, Steak au Poivre and Caesar’s Salads,” he says.

Hunsaker went through the McDonald’s management-training program in the 1980s and spent five years at the company.

He also worked five years as a manager with the company that owns the fast-food restaurant chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.

Wherever he goes, he’s drawn to cooking.

“I like feeding people, I like seeing them have a good time,” he says.